Deport Justin Bieber?

By Ruben Navarrette

Updated 2223 GMT (0623 HKT) January 24, 2014

Photos: Teen heartthrob Justin Bieber22 photos

Teen heartthrob Justin Bieber – Justin Bieber walks on a beach in Panama on Saturday, January 25, two days after he was charged in Miami with drunken driving, resisting arrest and driving without a valid license. The pop star is accompanied by his new girlfriend, model Chantel Jeffries, who is wearing the orange bikini.

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Photos: Teen heartthrob Justin Bieber22 photos

Teen heartthrob Justin Bieber – Bieber turned 19 on March 1. He won't be able to claim the "teen" in his pop star title for much longer.

Teen heartthrob Justin Bieber – Bieber cleans up at the American Music Awards in November, but the young artist is left out completely when the Grammy nominations are announced a few weeks later. Add an alleged murder plot to the mix, and it's fair to say December 2012 wasn't the best month for the Biebs.

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Photos: Teen heartthrob Justin Bieber22 photos

Teen heartthrob Justin Bieber – Bieber's relationship with Selena Gomez seemed to end at the end of 2012, although their actions sparked rumors of reconciliation just about every other week. Regardless of their on-again, off-again status, Bieber chose to take his mom, Pattie Mallette, as his date to the 2012 American Music Awards.

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Photos: Teen heartthrob Justin Bieber22 photos

Teen heartthrob Justin Bieber – The Biebs has a knack for concert mishaps. He managed to run into a wall of glass backstage in Paris in June 2012, and in the fall of that year, he got sick onstage before moving on with his performance in Glendale, Arizona. Here he performs at the Staples Center in Los Angeles in October 2012.

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Teen heartthrob Justin Bieber – In June 2012, the singer was all smiles as he held baby brother Jaxon at the MuchMusic Video Awards in Toronto.

Teen heartthrob Justin Bieber – The Biebs attends the NRJ Music Awards in January 2012, but he stays busy giving back when he's not hitting the red carpet. A month later, he made a special Valentine's Day trip to a girl suffering from cancer. Photos he shared from their time together quickly went viral.

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Teen heartthrob Justin Bieber – Bieber had some of the "most influential hair" of 2011 and also was ranked as one of the most charitable stars. Here, he showed off his style with Paris Jackson at the Michael Jackson hand and footprint ceremony at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles.

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Teen heartthrob Justin Bieber – Bieber was embroiled in a baby mama scandal when he attended the 2011 American Music Awards with Selena Gomez, but you wouldn't know it by looking at the happy couple. A year later, Bieber and Gomez would no longer be an item.

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Teen heartthrob Justin Bieber – Bieber attends the MTV Video Music Awards in August 2011 with a snake on one hand and then-girlfriend Selena Gomez holding on to the other. He won the best male video award for "U Smile" that night.

Teen heartthrob Justin Bieber – Bieber shows off on the basketball court at the 2011 BBVA NBA All-Star Celebrity Game in Los Angeles. Even former NBA player Scottie Pippen said he was surprised by Bieber's skills.

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Teen heartthrob Justin Bieber – The pop idol attends the Los Angeles premiere of "Justin Bieber: Never Say Never," a 3-D documentary on his rise to stardom, in February 2011. He's accompanied by Usher and manager Scooter Braun.

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Teen heartthrob Justin Bieber – At 16, Bieber was already an author. Here he promotes his book, "First Step 2 Forever: My Story," at a New York bookstore in November 2010.

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Teen heartthrob Justin Bieber – Complete with a letterman jacket and a drum solo, Bieber surprises fans in an outdoor performance at the MTV Video Music Awards in Los Angeles in September 2010.

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Teen heartthrob Justin Bieber – By early 2010, Bieber had notched a chart-scaling album with "My World" and was ready to release "My World 2.0," which contained the single "Baby." Here, Bieber performs at the Pepsi Super Bowl Fan Jam in Miami Beach in February 2010.

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Teen heartthrob Justin Bieber – The Stratford, Ontario, native first attracted attention on YouTube. Here Bieber, in his signature purple hoodie, entertains crowds at Arthur Ashe Kids' Day, a U.S. Open event, in New York in August 2009.

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Teen heartthrob Justin Bieber – At 15, Bieber had yet to become synonymous with the ubiquitous single "Baby." At this point, he was soaking up all he could learn from his mentor, Usher, with whom he attended the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards in March 2009.

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Story highlights

Justin Bieber was arrested for racing under the influence of drugs, alcohol

Ruben Navarrette: Bieber has an extraordinary knack for getting into trouble

He says Bieber's star status doesn't mean he should get special treatment

Navarrette: If Bieber is convicted, he should get a one-way ticket out of U.S.

Canada's most valuable export? Oil. Its most problematic? Justin Bieber.

You know it's going to be a strange week when the hashtag #DeportBieber. is trending on Twitter.

Guess what? Nineteen-year-old singer and teen heartthrob Justin Bieber -- who was arrested this week in Miami Beach for street racing in a $250,000 Lamborghini while under the influence of alcohol and drugs, driving without a valid license, and resisting arrest -- is not a U.S. citizen. Rather, Bieber is a citizen of his native Canada.

Lucky Canada.

Bieber is in the United States on an O-1 work visa that was designed to retain foreigners with "extraordinary ability in the sciences, arts, education, business or athletics."

What Bieber has is an extraordinary knack for getting into trouble. Far away from Miami, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department is investigating whether Bieber was involved in an egging of his neighbor's home in a gated community in Calabasas, California.

While other teenage celebrities might aspire to be crowned "America's sweetheart," Bieber -- given his childish, narcissistic and self-destructive antics -- seems to be angling for a more dubious title: "America's brat."

Bieber isn't known for doing smart things, but the one smart thing that Team Bieber did is what the rich and spoiled often do when they land in jail in South Florida. Bieber's manager hired Roy Black, the Miami-based celebrity defense lawyer who is as skilled in front of a television camera as in front of a jury.

Black said this week that he hoped the case against Bieber would proceed "as any other case would."

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What the blank?!

C'mon, Roy. Really? If this case had proceeded like any other -- or at least, like many others -- your client might be in Calgary by now. The immigration enforcement apparatus does not look favorably upon non-U.S. citizen foreigners who commit crimes and get arrested.

You can have a green card or a visa that allows you to live in the United States legally while you work or study, and you can still get deported if you get crossways with the law. Think of it this way: The U.S. government grants permission to some people to stay in this country, and it can revoke it, too. It happens every day, especially here in the Southwest and along the U.S.-Mexico border, for crimes ranging from shoplifting to drunk driving to selling ice cream without a permit. Americans either don't hear about these cases, or they don't care because the person being removed from the country isn't rich and famous.

Of course, Bieber hasn't been convicted of anything yet. In fact, according to published reports relying on a source close to the investigation, Bieber's blood-alcohol level was below 0.08% in two breath tests administered by authorities. The 0.08% mark is the legal limit for most drivers in Florida. For drivers under 21, the state has a lower threshold for proving one is intoxicated: 0.02%. A source told CNN that Bieber blew .011% and .014% in the two Breathalyzer tests. However, police say Bieber admitted to them that he had been drinking, using marijuana and taking prescription pills.

The point is that, in many cases, when dealing with foreigners who find themselves in police custody, we wouldn't even have gotten this far. Again, back in the real world of law enforcement, there are police stations -- for instance, in Southern California -- that allow federal immigration agents to sit at a desk in the squad room. And when a police officer walks in with a suspect in handcuffs who looks like he might just be undocumented (read: "Mexican"), the catch of the day gets passed on to the immigration agent before he is even fingerprinted. So there's no record of the transaction. And if the agent determines that the person in custody is in the country illegally, he takes possession and immediately transports him to a nearby Border Patrol substation to begin deportation proceedings.

It's all very efficient, and journalists like me wouldn't even know it was happening if we didn't have helpful sources within police departments telling us that it's happening.

In Bieber's case, he was not handed over to immigration agents and hustled out the back door of the police department to begin deportation proceedings. Instead, Bieber was released from jail after he made a brief appearance through a video link before a Miami judge, who set a "standard" $2,500 bond.

I bet that, right about now, many of those Mexican immigrants who were deported because they came to the attention of local police officers for a burned-out taillight, or for not making a complete stop at an intersection, are wishing that they had been a rich, white kid with marginal music ability and too much money. If so, things might have gone differently for them.

Meanwhile, Congress seems to be getting ready to debate how to fix the immigration system. The major question will be what to do with the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants living in the United States. But along the way, lawmakers must also revisit and revamp the unfair O-1 work visa program. There is enough favoritism in the immigration system as it is. If people come from certain countries or have certain skills, they're more likely to get in. We don't need more of that brand of preferential treatment for singers, actors or ice skaters.

Just like we don't need a certain Canadian import. If Bieber is convicted of the alleged crimes in South Florida, he should get what many other foreigners have already received for less serious infractions: a one-way ticket out of the country.